To the editor:

As an anecdote to the issue of sidewalk conditions in Lawrence, I offer this story:

In 1974, while residing near the campus, I attended my first Lawrence City Commission meeting, at the then-new bank tower on Massachusetts, in response to seeing a frail elderly man, with a cane, take a stunning dive across a broken stretch of brick sidewalk, upended by the roots of an ancient American elm tree. While returning to my seat from the dais, following my inquiry as to why sidewalks were not maintained in the same fashion as our city streets, I was admonished by a particular commissioner, forthwith, “There ought to be a fence around this town to keep people like you out of here.”

Limping home, mulling a strategy to avenge this grave insult, I thought then, as now, “what if city streets were maintained by the same regime we reserve for our walkways, whereby adjacent property owners are responsible for the stretches of road which pass their real estate?” Absurd, right? All this speaks to what little regard our culture holds for the pedestrian, in the first place, in a world where folks on foot are regarded as little more than criminals waiting to happen.

I contend that EVERY sidewalk in Lawrence, deemed necessary in the first place, should be constructed, paid for and maintained by the city and that property taxes should be utilized to help foot the bill like they are for almost everything else.

I rest my case.

Mark Kaplan,

Lawrence